


chasing a legacy

by resistanceflyboy (kherezae)



Series: chasing a legacy [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Headcanon, Rey Skywalker, Tags May Change, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-02 08:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6559549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kherezae/pseuds/resistanceflyboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey's having nightmares through Kylo Ren's eyes. The one time she ventured into Ren's head was more than enough for her; she can't pin down why her subconscious is tormenting her with nightmares that should really be his instead. [Discontinued, most likely]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. where it starts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, be forewarned, I have a pretty interesting headcanon for this. [Here's the full, rambling explanation at my tumblr](http://resistanceflyboy.tumblr.com/post/142817583427/okay-so-i-deeply-wish-i-could-do-the-gif-making), but basically, Snoke lured Ben to the Dark Side by pretending to be Vader, and Kylo Ren was actually the one to leave Rey on Jakku. (It makes sense, I promise. But you're warned anyway in case you want to back out now.)
> 
> Anyway... this fic is the main body of this series. It's not super ship-heavy. There's Finn/Rey because it feels like the natural progression of things. If you squint you'll notice onesided Poe->Finn, and eventually there may or may not be hints of Poe/Kylo. (I'm trying to keep the Poe/Kylo-centric stuff to a separate fic in this series.) Other fics in this series are supplemental/for fun.

It starts with reliving Han Solo’s death.

It’s not an entirely unexpected nightmare. That was a horrible day, all told; Han murdered by his own son, the fight in the frigid forest of a planet-turned-weapon, the scramble to Finn’s motionless body in the snow. That sudden expansion of relief rolling out through her nerve endings when Finn’s chest inflated with breath.

So yeah. Even though Finn’s awake now, and Rey gets holos from him almost daily complaining about being confined to bedrest and asking her a dozen questions about training with Luke Skywalker, it isn’t that surprising that she has nightmares.

What is strange is that when she dreams of that chaotic bolt of heat piercing Han’s chest, when she sees his eyes go wide and disbelieving and hurt, she’s right in front of him. Standing where Kylo Ren stood. Feeling his hand cup her cheek before the strength drains from it, before his body pulls free of the furious buzz of the lightsaber and falls away into the black below. She can hear her own screaming in the distance, echoing through the cold, metal chamber of the oscillator.

She feels that moment of expectance, of triumph, and she knows relief will come rolling in any moment. It’s finally done. The last of the Light is rooted out.

Right?

Rey wakes and sits up, leaning over her knees, her chest heaving against her thighs and her hands clutching her ankles. Just a nightmare. 

She’s been in Kylo Ren’s head once before. She has no desire to return. Why do her nightmares plant her in his head, feeling the hot boil of emotions barely contained in his body? 

* * *

Luke is pleased with her progress. It’s been only a few weeks, but she can stack stones with nothing more than her mind. Not as high or for as long as she’d like to, though. The things she did on the Starkiller Base (not that she’s thrilled to think back to that day) seemed much more natural. Following the fierce, piercing thread of Kylo Ren’s power back into his thoughts. Slipping the thought into her guard’s head that he’d like to unlock her restraints, leave the door open, and drop his weapon.

Compared to that, stacking stones is tedious and — and verges on agonizing, honestly, when the stack only reaches five or six high before wobbling as her control slips. It’s always a stray thought. Has Finn been allowed off bedrest yet? Does General Organa still wear that bone-weary, aching expression when she thinks no one is looking? Sometimes — she hates it but — sometimes it’s, does Kylo Ren feel the same ache over his father’s death that the general or even Rey does?

In the dreams she feels the edge of the ache rushing in, but they’re just nightmares. Kylo Ren feels nothing, and she needs to be focusing on training, because who else is going to be able to face him but her?

“It’s okay,” Luke says as she grimaces and grumbles over another toppled stack of stones. “You’re doing great.” Sometimes (like now), when he looks at her there’s a softness to his expression that breaks through the age and grief that normally weighs him down. He runs the fingers of one hand down along his beard and offers her a small smile.

Rey exhales hot breath and picks up one of the stones, throwing it sharply against the wall of the old temple they’ve been using for training. It’s more ruins than anything, but some of the rooms offer shelter from the elements. Rey doesn’t mind it; it’s better than the old AT-AT she slept in back on Jakku. There’s always a green smell in the air. “How long am I going to spend stacking rocks?” she asks, the petulance in her tone bleeding away to weariness.

“Until it’s comfortable,” Luke says. “Until you can do it blindfolded and upside down.”

Rey’s exhale scrapes through her throat, coming out less respectful than she intended. Luke and his blindfolds. She also practices dodging and deflecting blaster fire while blindfolded. She should have patience, she knows that, but it’s hard with the First Order out there regrouping and growing strong while the Resistance scrambles to pull together what threadbare support it has left.

Luke looks almost… amused. Rey frowns and returns to stacking rocks. Maybe this time she can get to seven. She just needs to… clear her mind. Find that place again where it all comes into focus.

Like teetering on the edge of a precipice, a murderous psychopath offering to train her in the ways of the Force. That moment of calm clarity when she realized his recklessness would be his downfall.

* * *

When they finally move past the basics of physical control with the Force — when there’s no training left to be done on this empty planet because now she needs people (minds) to practice with — that’s when the nightmares get worse.

Not right away. First there’s the homecoming. General Organa’s eyes glimmering with tears that can’t escape the gravity of her sadness as she embraces her brother after so many years. Finn picking her up and spinning the breath from her as she laughs, her fingers tight on his shoulders. “I missed you too,” she says as he sets her down and then pulls her in for a tighter embrace, his neck and cheek hot against hers.

“Doc would probably kill me for picking you up like that,” Finn admits. Rey can hear the smile in his voice. He releases her, shifting back to study her at arm’s length.

“Still working on physical therapy?” Rey asks through a smile that threatens to split her cheeks.

He nods and turns so they can walk side-by-side toward the Resistance base. It’s a new one, but Rey didn’t know the old one well, so it doesn’t much matter. “So, what Force tricks have you got now? You can show off. I don’t mind.”

Rey chuckles — almost refuses — but then she gives in. She can sense the comlink in his pocket, so she reaches a tendril of the Force around it, sliding it free of his pocket to hover in front of him.

“We’re here rebuilding the Resistance and you’re off learning to use the Force to be a master thief?” Finn asks, sweeping a hand across to pluck the hovering comlink from the air. He turns a grin on her that makes her heart swell against her ribs.

Force, she’s missed Finn.

Well, she’s here to train the interpersonal part of the Force, right? She reaches out tentatively for Finn’s mind. Not a hold, just brushing across the surface of his thoughts and feelings. He’s  _ bright _ , so bright — just joy and relief, and utterly focused on her.

“Rey,” Luke calls, and she stops, turns to find him. He has an arm — well, not around the general, but with his palm held against her back. “Get the lay of the base today. We’ll start work tomorrow.”

She nods, gratitude seeping into her smile. He probably needs time with his sister anyway, but it’s still nice to have a day just to reunite with Finn and get her bearings.

“Awesome,” Finn says. “Come on, you have to meet Poe Dameron. Did you meet Poe already?” He’s not waiting for an answer. Rey picks up her pace to match his as he almost-jogs toward the wide, squat building off the side of the duracrete that makes up the base’s airfield.

Poe Dameron was the first to rush to the Millennium Falcon when they landed after Starkiller Base, concern etched on his face to see Finn draped from Chewie’s arms. She’d hardly exchanged two words with him — there was too much rush to follow the map to Luke Skywalker — but any friend of Finn’s is a friend of Rey’s. And she’s heard plenty about him through Finn’s holos over the last few months.

Finn bursts into the hangar at that near-jog, but Rey can’t help slowing. So many ships, and the space swarming with mechanics. She’s looking around at the fighters, starstruck. All different kinds. Some she even flew on her flight simulator back on Jakku. She itches to take one up, to compare her flight simulator to the real thing.

A hand on her shoulder draws her attention to Poe. Without realizing it she drifted halfway across the hangar after Finn, and now Poe’s grinning at her, all messy black curls and warm, brown eyes that crinkle at the corners. “Finn’s been driving me crazy,” he teases with a fond glance toward Finn. “I’m glad you’re here to help shoulder the burden of his attention now. He’s told me a lot about you. Everything there is to know, I think.”

Finn rolls his eyes. “Don’t let him fool you, he’s thrilled by my company.”

Rey brushes against Poe’s mind like she did Finn’s on the airfield. Finn’s not wrong. Poe is confidence and bravado and an underlying softness, and his focus for Finn is intense and warm. There’s a bittersweet thread to his thoughts that confuses Rey, brings heat to her cheeks.

A hard thump against the side of her leg brings Rey’s glance down just as BB-8 chirps a half-affronted accusation: she’s been gone too long, and was she not going to say hi? Rey chuckles. “Hey. I missed you too.”

BB-8 gives a satisfied, whirring sort of beep and rocks back from against her leg, but he stays close.

“I hear you’re quite a pilot,” Poe says, returning his attention to Rey.

She nearly jumps, the warmth flushing through her face again. He doesn’t know she was just filtering through the edges of his thoughts, she reminds herself. “And you’re the best pilot in the Resistance,” she says.

He grins, his tongue edging at the corner of his mouth for an instant. Doesn’t deny it. But he does say, “After years of practice. The way Finn tells it, your first flight you were dodging TIE fighters through the skeletons of dead Star Destroyers.”

Well, it was her second flight. She finds herself grinning. “Did Finn happen to mention his first-class shooting?”

Poe laughs as he nods. “Many times.”

Finn’s hands go to his hips. If he’s embarrassed, he shouldn’t be. His shooting really was stellar, and his enthusiasm is one of his best qualities. Rey nudges him with her elbow and shoots him a grin.

Poe thumbs over his shoulder to a black-painted X Wing. “Want to take one up?”

Rey’s lips part as she stares at him. “Can I?”

He chuckles. “Absolutely.”

And that’s how, though she should really be getting to know the Resistance base, Rey spends the rest of her day flying. She wouldn’t trade it for anything.

* * *

That night she dreams through Kylo Ren’s eyes again. It’s the same nightmare but… more. She’s somehow Ren for other memories. Memories she has no means to know. Her brief stroll through Ren’s head was enough to tell her he was fixated absolutely on living up to Darth Vader’s legacy, but nothing more than that.

She’s Kylo Ren — she’s Ben Solo — at four years old on Han Solo’s lap the first time he remembers jumping to hyperspace. The stars elongate to streaks of bright white and blue light and her — his — stomach lurches, and Uncle Chewie’s watching her and laughing in that warbling way he has. Mom’s hand tightens on her shoulder. “I want to be a pilot like Dad,” she says, but it’s not her voice, it’s  _ his _ . Smaller. A child’s voice. Ben-before-he-was-Kylo.

She’s seven years old, tears streaking down her cheeks while Mom and Dad fight in the other room. “He can’t just  _ do _ that Leia!” and “I know Han, you think I’m telling him to stop bullies with the Force?” and “He nearly killed that boy, that’s not  _ normal _ . Tell me you or Luke pulled stunts like that as kids —”

“We didn’t know we were Force users,” Leia says.

“Maybe he shouldn’t either. We saw how well that worked out for his grandfather.”

And then, the lurking voice again. Dark.  _ It made me powerful. The most powerful Sith there ever was. _

It’s disorienting because it’s not her voice. It’s not even Ben’s voice. It’s something else. Some dim part of Rey whispers  _ Snoke _ , but it’s far away. She’s trapped in this memory, in a young boy’s hurt and confusion.  

_ They will never understand you. You are a child of the Dark Side, like me. They will try to steal your power from you. _

“Who are you?” Rey-Ben whispers, grinding her fingertips into her hairline and screwing her eyes shut against the tears.

The voice plays at surprise.  _ Why, your grandfather, _ it says.  _ I have to look after you. You’re going to finish what I started. _

And then flashes of — of death and — chaos and  _ power _ . Destruction. A man’s throat crushed for his incompetence, a power that stretches across space to weak men in ships who think the distance keeps them safe. The deadly song of a lightsaber arcing through flesh and bone, the slight tug of resistance where his hand grips the hilt as it slices through his enemies. Standing among a field of burned and broken bodies that — that — 

Oh, Maker, they’re children — 

Rey snaps awake with a strangled cry and presses herself back, back against the wall, her sheets tangling around her legs. Her harsh breathing fills the room, quick and panicked. She’s alone. 

Being alone never bothered her, but now the emptiness around her threatens to suffocate. She doesn’t want to fall asleep. She doesn’t want to go back to that place.

She shudders against the wall until her breath grows calm, and then she eases to the center of her bed, crossing her legs. Anxiety hums through her bones. There will be no sleeping. She will practice. There’s not much to stack in this room, but she finds enough to occupy her. A toothbrush, soap, a couple ready meals from her pack. The lightsaber. Her shoes. Anything will do.

Eventually daylight creeps in.


	2. the weight of exhaustion

Rey doesn’t dream through Kylo Ren every night, and even when she does, often it’s no more than the original nightmare: Han Solo’s eyes going wide, Han Solo plummeting, the burgeoning grief in Ren’s gut where he expects relief.

Often enough, though, it goes further. Kylo Ren’s memories, Ben Solo’s memories. Dark or bittersweet or agonizing or so horrifying Rey wakes with her heart in her throat.

It doesn’t take long for the restless nights to take enough toll on her physically that Finn and Luke and Poe don’t fail to notice. 

“What’s wrong?” Luke asks her as they sit cross-legged, facing each other in a plain, still room. The concern on his face makes her uneasy. It’s not just worry for her well-being. She can sense something more there.

“I didn’t sleep well,” she says dismissively, and she closes her eyes. Luke has her feeling along the wall he put up in his mind to shield his thoughts, looking for cracks in his mental defense. Once they get this, he promised they will move on to Force holds so she can make sure Kylo Ren never again makes her body freeze up the way he did on Takodana.

“Nightmares?” Luke asks.

Rey cracks one eye open, her mouth twisting as she watches him. Han Solo was one of his oldest friends. To say she’s been reliving his death when she only knew him a couple of weeks seems laughable compared to whatever Luke must feel. But it also might soften that worry in his eyes, so she admits it. “I see Han Solo die again nearly every night.”

Grief filters across Luke’s face, tightening his eyes and clenching his jaw. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Rey shakes her head, clears her throat. “Come on,” she says softly. “I can get this.”

But Luke shakes his head. “We worked through lunch.”

Rey’s eyebrows lift. Meals have become a regular, dependable thing since leaving Jakku, and she’s not one to miss lunch intentionally. She’s not sure if it’s focus or exhaustion wreaking havoc with her sense of time.

Whatever he sees on her face has Luke smiling. “Go,” he says. “Eat. Take the rest of the day to practice skimming thoughts. Maybe your friends will let you dig in a little deeper.”

Since he’s still in physical therapy, Finn’s daily schedule is usually pretty light. It doesn’t take Rey long to find him. It helps that the Force touches him more strongly than the average person. If she takes a moment to let her thoughts settle, she can sense him anywhere on base. He’s outside in the forest that borders the airfield.

As she approaches, he steps away from the tree trunk he’s been leaning against and smiles the moment his eyes find hers. Then his brow knits and he brushes a hand against her shoulder. “Still not sleeping well?” he asks. He’s been concerned over it for three days now.

She forces a smile. “Not really.” She doesn’t want to think about it. Instead she threads her arm through his. “I’ve got the rest of the day off, more or less.”

Finn chuckles. “More or less?”

“Well, I’m supposed to be practicing skimming thoughts,” she admits. “But I can do that anywhere there’s people.”

“Great,” Finn says with a pleased grin. “Where do you want to go, then?”

She likes it out here. Brushing against Finn’s thoughts, she catches the comfort of being in nature, the stark contrast to the cold, sterile metal of the First Order. But her stomach rumbles protest, and she says, “I haven’t eaten lunch yet.”

Finn’s mouth rounds into mock indignation. “Where’s Skywalker? I’ll give him a piece of my mind, letting his star student starve…”

Rey knocks sideways against him, sending him staggering a couple of steps and pulling her along after. She’s grinning as they make their way toward the mess hall.

* * *

They take a late dinner, which coincides nicely with Poe leaving a reconnaissance debriefing with General Organa and joining them, along with several of his team. Finn is an open book, happy to let Rey rummage through his thoughts as much as she wants. Jess Pava shrugs when she asks — “Sure,” she says, her mind flavored by the buzz of amusement and hinting that she expects innocent-scavenger-Rey to be surprised by what she finds there.

Poe hesitates, the icy chill of fear edging into his mind, and Rey immediately backs off. She’s not sure why the thought of Rey in his head weighs him down with so much dread, but she’s going to respect the feeling regardless. Even if it sends a little twinge of hurt through her, because doesn’t he trust her?

She dismisses the feeling. Not everyone’s going to be okay with having her in their head. It’s why she asks permission in the first place.

They stay in the mess hall until the hours stretch long and gradually Poe’s flight team starts to trickle out, exhausted by their reconnaissance mission and ready to crash for the night. Poe lingers the longest, smiling easily at Finn as he plays clips of his favorite music from his datapad. Finn had limited exposure to music in the First Order, and he devours it now. 

Rey’s been fighting back yawns for an hour when Finn finally shakes his head and grabs her hand. She shoots him a dry look as he stands and tries to draw her to her feet. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asks.

“Getting you to bed,” Finn says. “You need to rest. You’re even making me tired.”

She wants to protest, but the yawn that escapes instead does little for her cause. Finally she sighs, stands, and waves over her shoulder to Poe. “Apparently it’s my bedtime,” she says. “Good night.”

Poe’s smile is soft, but there’s a hint of tightness around his eyes. Rey starts to feel for his thoughts but stops herself short. “Good night,” Poe says.

“Night!” Finn calls as they leave the mess.

Rey’s room is next to Finn’s, which is on the same hall as Poe’s. She’s not sure who took the time to make sure they’d have someone familiar nearby on base, but she suspects it was the general. Finn stops in front of Rey’s door and grabs her shoulders, his eyebrows drawing down. “Seriously, Rey. Get some sleep.”

“Yes sir,” she teases. Finn releases her, and she watches him over her shoulder as she slips into her room. The door shuts between them, and Rey’s smile fades.

* * *

She didn’t expect sleep to come easily, so it surprises her when the dream forms around her. No Han Solo this time, for the first time she can remember. Instead she’s on board the  _ Finalizer _ , in the room with the interrogation chair.

She recognizes the man strapped into that chair. It’s Poe Dameron, bloodied and weary but still sharp with bravado. But, stranger:  _ Kylo Ren _ recognizes Poe, and the sight of him seizes up Rey’s — Ren’s — gut. The hot fury and pain boiling through her grabs hold and yanks her back into other memories:

A young boy she has/has never seen. It’s Poe, maybe seven or eight years old, and while Rey has never seen him, she’s caught up in a mind that has. Ben Solo has never stayed in one place very long, but he’s seen Poe around once or twice. Before, he was always happy, a beacon of joy and humor that made Ben ache with envy.

Today he’s muted and solemn, a dark weight in his eyes. Ben watches him and suddenly misses the easy laugh he always had before. He wishes he could do something to take that weight from Poe. But he can’t. Poe’s mom is dead. There’s nothing Ben can do to change that, so he stands awkwardly until Mom tells them to go out in the yard and leave the adults to talk. 

Kylo Ren lurches free of the memory and Rey is with him in front of Poe in the interrogation chair. Rey  _ is _ him. When he reaches out with his power, it feels like she’s the one in control, the one digging into the cracks of Poe’s mind and prying memories loose as she searches for  _ the map _ .

She pulls loose another memory and they’re caught:

She (Ben) is eight years old, and ten-year-old Poe is practically glowing as he introduces Ben to his friends on Yavin IV. “This is Ben,” he says, and Ben likes being just  _ Ben _ , not  _ Ben Organa-Solo _ . “He’s staying with us for a few weeks.”

The memory blurs, and then Rey (Ben) is  _ furious _ , coming off a Force-shove of one of Poe’s friends who wouldn’t leave him alone about  _ So are you going to be a Jedi _ and  _ Show me, do something with the Force _ and  _ You can’t be a Jedi if you can’t even float a hydrospanner _ — 

Poe steps between them, one hand on Ben’s chest, a calming steadiness even as his chest heaves against that light pressure. “Hey, cut it out,” Poe says to his friend. “He doesn’t have to do anything.”

“He pushed me with the Force!” the boy complains.

Poe scoffs. “Kind of asked for it, didn’t you?”

Kylo Ren rips through the memory, digging deeper. Rey — he — they wield the Force like claws, shredding through Poe’s mind until he’s screaming, and then the scream turns to a single peal that cuts off as Rey comes awake in her room.

She wraps her arms around her knees, her breath coming in frantic gasps. A knock at her door sends a jolt through her body, and then there’s Finn’s voice, beautiful and comforting and warm even with worry pulsing through it: “Rey! Are you okay?”

Rey swallows, clears her throat, the sharp tear of the scream still stinging. “I’m fine,” she lies.

“Rey, I — can I come in?”

She takes a deep, steadying breath. Nods. He can’t see her nodding. “Yeah. Sure, yeah. Come in.”

The door opens and Finn is across the room in a flash, settling on the edge of the bed and laying a warm hand on her arm. “Nightmares?” he asks, soft.

Rey lowers her forehead to her knees. “Yes,” she admits.

“I have them too,” Finn says, and Rey looks up, finding his eyes.

She hadn’t considered that. Bright, joyful Finn with the unbreakable spirit dealing with the same nightmares Rey does?

Well. Not the same. She’s increasingly sure these are  _ real _ . 

But she lays her opposite hand over the one Finn has on her arm, her brow furrowing as she watches him. “What are your nightmares?” she asks, because it’s easier than dealing with her own.

“The fight with Kylo Ren, sometimes,” Finn says. “You… not making it.” His eyes slide away from hers, then back, and he clears his throat. “Han Solo dying, sometimes. Or, other nights, that I never left the Order. That — that I’m there on that base, fighting against you guys.”

Rey hums in the back of her throat, rubbing her thumb over Finn’s hand. Real nightmares. Not being stuck in a monster’s head.

“What about you?” Finn asks.

Rey bites her lip and looks away. She doesn’t want to get into it fully, not quite yet. She has questions first that need answering. Like, “When you helped Poe off the Finalizer — what happened to him, there?”

Finn’s expression darkens. “Torture,” he says. “They were trying to get the map to Luke Skywalker out of him.”

Taking a breath, she asks, “Did Kylo Ren torture him?”

Finn nods. There’s a question in his eyes, but he lets the silence stretch.

“I saw it,” Rey whispers finally. “I dreamed it. My nightmares, I’m — I’m there  _ with _ Kylo Ren. In his head.”

The bed shifts beneath Rey as Finn adjusts his position, drawing his knee up until his shin is pressed against her ankles. His calf warms her toes. “Is it some kind of Force thing?” Finn asks, cautious.

“I don’t know.”

A pause. Then, “You should ask Luke.”

Rey nods. At this point, she needs to know. Even if she’s afraid she won’t like what she hears. “Why him? Why am I stuck in the head of a monster?”

Finn shakes his head, his expression firm and solemn. “It’s nothing to do with you. It’s probably something he did. Something to get to you.” Disgust flavors his voice, but then he’s searching her eyes, his expression softening. “Luke will be able to help.”

Maybe. Hopefully. Exhaustion weighs heavily on her shoulders, but she doesn’t want to fall back asleep. Doesn’t want to return to  _ that _ . She looks down, still rubbing her thumb across the back of Finn’s hand.

“Do you want me to stay?” Finn asks.

Yes. Yes. She doesn’t want to be alone, and Finn is comforting. Rey nods and shifts to the side, allowing Finn more room on the bed. He fluffs her pillow into a makeshift backrest against the wall, then leans and opens his arms to Rey. She curls against his chest, breathing in the scent of home.


	3. call out across the black

Maybe it’s because Finn shared his nightmares, maybe it’s just because he’s  _ here _ , but Rey has her own nightmares for the first time she can remember in — well, ever, really. She sometimes dreamed an awful loneliness on Jakku, one that stretched endlessly, but she wouldn’t have really called it a nightmare. (It wasn’t much different from her waking world, after all.)

It starts with Han Solo’s death again, but she’s herself. She’s next to Finn on the balcony high in the oscillator, watching Kylo Ren talk to his father, watching him lure his father to his death with false hope that he’ll come home if only Han Solo can help him.

And then.

The rage of the saber lighting, cold one moment and a hot burst through Han’s chest the next.

Rey’s screams clawing her throat, ringing in her ears, and Finn crying out beside her in shock.

Han’s body drops. Kylo Ren looks up, directly at Rey, and hatred surges in her gut. “How could you!” she screams.

“I had to destroy the last of the Light,” Ren says. She can hear him perfectly, and suddenly he’s with her, and they’re in the snow. “It made me weak.”

He pounds at the wound in his side, the place where Chewie shot him. Blood stains the snow crimson in splatters.

“You’re still weak,” Rey cries. “Weaker than ever!”

“Shut up!” He lifts a hand toward Rey. “Get out of my head!”

And then she’s hurtling, her stomach lurching, until her back impacts against something  _ hard _ and then it’s all white and spitting snow from her mouth and a splitting headache —

The first time, she was out cold for a while, and dragging herself awake was like digging out of what’s left of a sandstorm but  _ impossibly cold _ . She woke to Finn sprawled on his stomach, unmoving, with the panic of  _ no, Finn _ staved off by the immediate threat of Kylo Ren prowling forward.

But this time as she whips her head up to find him, she’s met with empty forest. So she scrambles to Finn, her hands going to his shoulders, and then down to his face, but —

That’s wrong. Under the surface chill from the snow, he was warm. He was  _ supposed _ to be warm, and breathing, with a pulse in his veins. But he’s not. He’s not. “Finn?” Rey shakes his shoulder, her voice thin and thready. “Finn!”

Heat blooms behind her eyes and a sob chokes its way from deep in her chest. “Finn,” she says, her voice breaking.

And then warmth bleeds in and an achingly familiar voice says, “I’m here Rey — what is it? Is it another nightmare?” Lips brush her forehead and there’s an arm around her back, squeezing her close to Finn’s broad chest.

Rey blinks as sleep withdraws its tendrils from her mind, and slowly reality solidifies around her. She’s with Finn, he’s safe, they’re both safe in her bunk at the Resistance base. She leans on one elbow to look at Finn, but as her weight leaves his chest he winces and then covers it with a smile.

“What’s wrong?” Rey asks.

“It’s nothing — just my back,” he says, and Rey grimaces as she takes in the awkward position he’s been sleeping in, half-bent against the wall with just her thin pillow for support.

“Finn — come on, scoot down, lie flat,” she says.

“Doc’s gonna kill me,” he jokes, but he follows her urging. Rey shifts with him so she can stay tucked under his arm. “Worth it.”

She buries a grin against his chest.

“Were they the same nightmares?” Finn asks, his breath ruffling past her hair.

Rey arches her neck to rest her head on his shoulder, his arm a solid warmth along her back. “No, these were my nightmares, I think. Not his.”

“Still nightmares,” Finn points out.

“Mine are better.” It comes out more smug than she actually feels, but she does prefer her own fears to his deeper, harsher horror. The thought of losing Finn ached to her core, but then she woke to his voice and the fear melted away before it could even fully grip her.

This time when she drifts to sleep, she doesn’t dream.

* * *

Kylo snaps awake with an aching sorrow and longing for a traitorous Stormtrooper that curls in his chest for a moment before it evaporates like smoke. 

He’s not alone, and it’s not the girl, though the sense of her still lingers in the back of his mind, a bad aftertaste.

No, this is a more immediate threat. He senses the mind of one of his Knights, but Wavern’s thoughts are shrouded. It’s not enough. The murderous intent seeps through minute fracture points in Wavern’s control. You can’t hide your mind from Kylo Ren.

He’s on his feet in the space of a breath and he throws his hand out, a hard push with the Force shoving Wavern up against the wall. It doesn’t hold; Wavern is well-trained, and he breaks Kylo’s grip, but it leaves him spluttering a cough through the modulator of his helmet.

Kylo’s in thin black pants and a black shirt, his own mask on the table near the door, which is to say he’s practically naked. He ignores it, summoning his saber with a gesture and stalking closer to Wavern. “You thought you could slip into my room and kill me in the night,” he says, running half on reasoning and half on the vague shape of the plan in Wavern’s head. “Why?” Hot temper roils in his chest, but he contains it. This is a time for answers, not for lashing out.

Wavern is silent, fighting to shore up the barrier in his head. Distracted by that, he’s defenseless in other ways, so Kylo reaches out with another Force push that cracks Wavern’s helmet against the wall. The man’s saber is loose in his grip, so Kylo steps forward and plucks it from his grasp, skipping it across the floor to the far corner of the room. 

He thumbs the switch for his own saber and it hums to life, spitting energy in erratic bursts as he brings the edge near Wavern’s throat. The hot bolt casts the room in red, reflecting Kylo’s distorted face in the various planes of Wavern’s mask. “I am loathe to kill one of my Knights after all of the time I’ve spent training you,” Kylo says. “But if I must…”

“Snoke,” Wavern manages, and even with the modulation of his mask the name is a breathless puff of air. A pause, and then, “Before our trials. He told us to use the trials to kill you. That whoever did would be Master of the Knights of Ren.”

Kylo clenches his teeth together. Snoke wants him dead? Training has been going well — there are the nightmares, but he’s almost certain Snoke hasn’t seen them. Kylo has taken great care to shield his mind, and he would feel it if Snoke probed deep enough into his thoughts to uncover those, wouldn’t he?

Of course, the scavenger girl (Rey, he pushes the thought away) has been in his head and he didn’t even realize until tonight.

No. More likely this is a test. His Knights did fight viciously through their trials. In telling them to try to kill Kylo, Snoke freed them to push to their limits. He tested Kylo’s ability as well.

Right?

“You’ve grown weak,” Wavern says, leaning off the wall and firming his stance. “A scavenger girl with no training brought you to your knees. Scarred you.” He taps carelessly at the mark across Kylo’s cheek.

Mistake. Fury lances through Kylo’s gut and his grip tightens on his saber. Wavern will duck when he sweeps down with his lightsaber. Wavern is predictable. He draws the weapon down, Wavern ducks, and Kylo grabs the back of his neck, using his momentum to send him stumbling forward. Then he cuts a second arc with the saber, and there’s the slight drag of passing through flesh and bone, and the stench of burning hair and skin.

Wavern falls to the floor. Not dead, yet. Kylo turns off his saber and goes down on one knee, draping an arm over his other thigh as he stares down at Wavern breathing his last breaths. “You betrayed the Supreme Leader’s trust,” he says. The words cloud the man’s mind as he struggles through the crystal-bright agony of death. They cast doubt in Wavern’s last thoughts.

It would be so much easier if Kylo could believe the words himself. In truth, he has no idea what game Supreme Leader Snoke is playing. But with the girl somehow managing to pry into his head, it’s more important than ever that he shield his mind, master himself.

Maybe Grandfather will know. Kylo hasn’t called on him in the weeks since that first time when he arrived on Halcyon. He wanted to master the nightmares on his own. But perhaps it is time.

Kylo doesn’t bother dealing with Wavern’s body. He sits cross-legged on his cot and closes his eyes, seeking the calm center of the maelstrom that burns within.  _ Grandfather, speak with me, _ he entreats as the scent of death settles through his room.

He waits in the silence for an answer.


	4. a war of memories

Rey’s not really sure how to broach the whole  _ having the nightmares of a psychopath _ thing to Luke, but in the end he makes it easy. They’ve barely settled cross-legged on the floor of the sparsely-outfitted room when Luke asks, “More nightmares last night?”

“Yes,” Rey says, but then she hesitates for a moment, brushing a strand of hair behind one ear. Luke’s eyes are studying her intently, warm. “They’re not… mine, I think. They’re Kylo Ren’s nightmares. It’s like I’m in his head.”

Luke’s eyes widen a bit and he rocks back. His stare slides away, contemplative. Finally he asks, “Does he know you’re there? Does he… talk to you?”

“I don’t think so?” Then she reflects on her most recent nightmares and amends, “Not until last night, at least.”

“Have you learned anything about him, what he’s doing, where he is..?”

Suddenly she knows where this is going and she shakes her head, her eyes a little wide. “No, it’s a jumbled mess, memories and — sometimes I don’t know where he stops and I begin, and I hate it.” She takes a breath, fixes her stare on Luke. “I hate it. I want it to stop.”

He holds her stare for a time before slowly nodding.

“Can you help me block him out?” Rey asks.

Luke sighs, settling his wrists over his knees. “It’s a matter of training. We’ll keep working. Your control and focus will get better. You’ll learn to shut down the connection.”

Rey nods as relief washes out through her limbs. “Then let’s keep going. I’ll try to get into your mind, right? Like before?”

“Yes. Remember to study the way I shield my thoughts. It will help you when it comes time to shield your own.” Luke closes his eyes, breathes. “Go ahead.”

She closes her eyes too. He’s still there, solid in her awareness, a powerful beacon of the Force. When she eases her awareness along the edges of his mind, like she does with Finn or Jess or Iolo, she gets… not exactly nothing. There’s a difference between that solid facade of emptiness and the true null of something the Force doesn’t interact with, something without a mind.

It feels… hot and dry. It reminds her of Jakku. Of wandering the sand dunes, aimless, monotonous. But she knew where to go on Jakku. In this barren construction, she’s lost with no landmarks to guide her.

She tries anyway. Pushes one direction, then the next. She’s met with more nothing. It’s strange, a flexible sort of barrier, but a barrier all the same.

After a while Rey heaves a sigh and withdraws, opening her eyes to look at Luke. “Maybe if you start by trying to get into my mind?” It was easier to follow the thread of Kylo Ren back into his own head, after all.

But Luke shakes his head without even opening his eyes. “You need to be able to do it this way. You’re letting me control it. It’s an easy habit to fall into; it is my mind, after all. But to push through someone’s defenses, you need to take control.”

Rey draws a bit of her lower lip between her teeth as she considers what he’s saying. She doesn’t like it. She might just know what he means, now, but it reminds her too much of being in Kylo Ren’s head in his memory of torturing Poe. Poe’s barrier had been a wall, not like Luke’s odd expanse of desert. And Poe’s barrier hadn’t lasted long.

She pushes back into Luke’s mind, into the barren place he wraps around his thoughts to trap her. Take control, he said. With a wall, she can break through it. She can be a laser cannon, a vibrosledge, whatever she needs to be to break through — or rather she can shape the Force into any of these. But in Luke’s wasteland, she needs another method.

On Jakku, she would navigate by a landmark. She would find something like the Spike to help orient herself. And since none of this is real, she uses the Force to create the Spike in the distance, and there it is — a landmark to move toward. Of course, the moment she starts heading in that direction, the wind begins to pick up with the threat of a sandstorm.

Luke, has to be. Reacting to her changes. But if Rey can create the Spike out of nothing in this wasteland, then she can create more. Suddenly she’s beside her speeder, and she climbs onto it and opens the engines, powering across the desert.

But why stop at a speeder? Something bubbly and light pools in Rey at the possibilities of this space where nothing and everything is possible. A twist of thought and now she’s in the pilot’s chair of a familiar X Wing, the one Poe lets her practice in. She speeds toward the Spike, outpacing the sandstorm, and reaches it in no time. The Spike, the Crackle, all of it as she remembers, vast sections of glassy rock left from the crash of some great ship years ago. Rey circles the spire that sticks up into the desert sky, one of the few remaining pieces of the crashed ship still standing free of the sand.

She can create here, but she’s still stuck in the desert buffer Luke put up around his thoughts. What she needs is to cut through the illusion. And as she imagines it, the ground below her fighter splits, sand falling away into a black nothingness.

The scene dissolves from around her. It had been so vivid. Just Luke’s way of running her around at the outskirts of his thoughts. But now she feels… bright threads of memories she can reach out for.

She pulls at one:

Luke watches a small girl walking quickly to keep up with the long strides of a gangly, dark-haired teen, and his worry brushes up against Rey — fear for the boy, fear for the little girl. Familiarity seizes up Rey’s gut.

That little girl, maybe four years old — that’s her. That’s Rey. She’s even got the same hairstyle Rey so frequently wears.

Another flash, then: Luke’s hands pulling tiny Rey’s hair into those little loops, one after the other, and tying them off carefully. Both of his hands look like flesh, not like the robotic one he has now. And tiny Rey is babbling about something, trying to pull away before he secures the last tie in place, but Luke laughs and stills her with a hand on her shoulder.

Why — why is Rey in Luke’s memories? Why isn’t  _ he _ in  _ hers? _ What is she missing? She combs through. Suddenly the memories are shifting away from her, slick in her grasp, and she has to chase after them. Luke is speaking, she knows dimly it’s aloud — “Rey, wait a minute, stop, let me talk to you” — but she pushes on, chasing a memory that  _ feels _ like an answer. It’s a resonance. 

She reaches for it, but it slips away. She falls into another instead:

Luke is fighting someone Rey doesn’t recognize, someone quick and brutal and not Human but not a species she’s encountered before, when a lance of agony cuts through him as one of those bright lights tied to him gets snuffed out — and it builds. More and more lights going out. He’s trying to focus on the fight, but part of his mind is seeking out along his connection to his students, trying to find out what’s gone  _ wrong, _ what is happening —

He misses a block. His opponent’s vibroaxe smashes against his hand, crushing through synth skin, wires, and mechanics, but it doesn’t hurt, not outside the pressure it puts on his wrist. The opponent must expect it to, because he tries to push the advantage, but Luke brings his lightsaber around in two sweeping arcs and then his attacker falls, his skin scorching.

This was… was this a distraction? Luke runs a hand back into his hair, reeling from all those bright lights snuffed out as he backs away from the fallen enemy. He has to get back. All of his students —

Ben. Ben whose connection to Luke has long been flickering in ways that worry him, eclipsed with darkness that Luke was only just beginning to root out for what it is. Luke’s sense of Ben wavers, but what he does get is Dark, and agonized, and heady, and —

Rey.

Nausea rises in him as he races for his ship.

Rey gasps in a deep breath as she reels out of the memory, her eyes going wide. “I’m — I’m sorry —” Luke’s sorrow and helplessness and anger and grief and — and worry, an intense worry — these are still whirling through Rey’s gut.

“I thought you died that day,” Luke says. Tear tracks streak his cheeks and his eyes shine. 

Rey’s chest is heaving and she can’t just sit here. She can’t. It’s too much. She stumbles to her feet, her hands going to her cheeks — damp with tears — and her fingers raking back into her hair as she stares at her boots, pacing. “What — what was that? I don’t — that was me. I don’t remember any of that. Why don’t I…?”

Luke stands, pushing himself up slowly, and his hands hover out like he would touch her, but he doesn’t. He watches. “You’re my daughter,” he says.

And Rey stops. She turns to stare at him, her hands falling from her hair to her sides. “My… I don’t remember you.” But she never remembered her family, only the overwhelming  _ certainty _ that they would come back for her.

“He must have blocked the memories,” Luke says. There’s a weird sense of calm in his voice that makes Rey want to scream, because how is any of this okay? But Luke just keeps going. “I bet that’s not all he did. But I can’t be sure of the extent of it yet.”

But Rey’s still stuck on  _ you’re my daughter _ because how? And if it’s true, why did he leave her? And why didn’t he tell her before now? Why did she nearly have to drag it from his mind? “What are you talking about?” It’s all she can manage to get out.

Luke sighs and finally reaches out, strong hands gripping her shoulders. “Let me start at the beginning. Okay?”

Rey nods and lets him guide her gently to the edge of the bare bunk against the wall. A rushing sensation consumes her, like long stretches zoned out on her speeder with just the hot desert air racing past. When Luke starts speaking, she’s staring at — or maybe through — the backs of her hands in her lap.

“When Ben was a child, Snoke wormed his way into his head and used the Dark Side to manipulate him, to bend him. But Han and Leia didn’t know it at the time. It took a long time for me to understand what was happening to him. I’m still not sure I understand it all.

“But by the time you were born, I knew enough to realize you were in danger. Your cousin was targeted because of his Skywalker heritage. Because Snoke expected he would be strong in the Force. You would have been just as much a target. Maybe more.”

Skywalker. Rey’s stare snaps up to meet Luke’s. So is that her family name? Is she not just  _ Rey _ anymore?

Luke’s mouth quirks with something like a smile, but mellow. Sad. “I didn’t tell anyone about you. As far as anyone knew, you were an orphan we took in because you were Force-sensitive. You trained with the other padawans.”

Rey’s mouth is dry, but she forces a swallow and asks her most immediate, burning question: “My mother?”

“She helped me with finding Force-sensitives, and with training. She left for a long trip to find more people — children mostly — who could be trained in the Force. While she was away, she had you. No one questioned when she brought you back with the others, an orphan with potential for the Force.”

“But who is she? Is she —”  _ alive, dead _ —

“Her name was Mara,” Luke says, his voice soft. “She died the same day I thought I lost you.”

Trying to make sense of it is like trying to piece together an unfamiliar droid. She’s not sure what goes where or even if she has all the right pieces. Kylo Ren wiped out Luke’s padawans, she knows that. And that connects to the memory she experienced in his head: all those lights flickering out, lightyears away. “Did he — did Kylo Ren kill her?” 

His expression hardens. “Yes. And I thought he killed you. For years.” He pauses, lets out a low breath. “I slipped, once. Training with him. I didn’t expect how he would take to mental manipulation. He caught a memory of you. I wasn’t sure at the time whether he realized what it meant, but the only reason I can think that he left you alive out of all the others is that he knows you are his cousin.”

“My cousin.” Rey nearly chokes on it. She’s going from an unknown family long gone to a Jedi father, dead mother, and murderous cousin. And — and that means General Organa is her aunt, then. And Han was her uncle. The water welling in her eyes makes Luke’s face blurry-bright. Another piece falls into place: “Does that mean  _ he _ was the one to leave me on Jakku?”

“He must be,” Luke agrees.

Heat boils in her gut and washes up her neck, into her limbs.  _ Kylo Ren _ is the reason she spent all those years alone on Jakku, waiting for a family who would never come back for her. Her  _ cousin. _ No. He’s no family of hers. He did so much to cut himself out of his family. Let him.

And he left her on  _ Jakku! _ A dustbowl of a planet, a junkyard as Finn would happily tell anyone who asks. Why not just kill her? She came close to starving more times than she likes to think about. What was the  _ point? _ “Why?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” Luke says, reaching out to clasp a hand over her arm. “I don’t know. And I’m sorry you found out this way. This wasn’t what I intended. Underestimating our family ability seems to be a habit of mine.” There’s a dark humor to his words.

Rey’s stare sharpens. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

The way Luke’s eyes soften into an aching expression knots up Rey’s gut. This is — her father? “You didn’t recognize me,” he says. “I didn’t know what happened to you. I thought it might be best to try to figure it out before…”

Suddenly it doesn’t matter. None of that. None of the why or how. Just: “But you — you  _ are _ my father?”

Luke’s eyes crinkle into a smile. “Yes. You made it home.”

Rey surges forward, throwing her arms around his shoulders and holding on for dear life. There’s a warm thread between them that’s growing, braiding into a solid connection. The Force resonates between them. She can feel the truth of it. “I can’t believe it,” she whispers. All that time waiting for her family, and she’s here at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah I named her Mara as a nod to the EU but that's the extent of it, for the most part. ... I hope this isn't utter crap. Time to go rewatch like all the movies. Feeling shaky on Luke. This chapter was oddly stressful. Gah.


End file.
